UPCOMING
SPECIAL
EVENTS

Special blood drives and incentives are highlighted on this page. You can also join our regular blood drives every Wednesday at the Veteran’s Commemorative Site on Memory Mall. The bloodmobile also comes for one week every month – watch our calendar for dates!

Omega Psi Phi is hosting a blood drive in honor of their brother, Dr. Charles Drew, “Father of the Blood Bank”. Dr. Drew was a renowned surgeon and pioneer in the preservation of life-saving blood plasma. He earned his MD and CM (Master of surgery) in 1933, graduating second in a class of 137. He discovered the method for long-term storage and organized and was the first director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank and assistant director in charge of blood for the United States Army and Navy. In a time of blatant racism and hostility toward African Americans, Dr. Drew’s achievements required him to overcome discrimination and other challenges. He quit the American Red Cross because of its policy on segregating blood according to race (after a battle to even allow African Americans to donate blood). He returned to Howard Medical School where he became chair of the Department of Surgery and Chief Surgeon at Freedmen’s Hospital.

The Fraternity not only recognizes their accomplished brother, but also want to educate their members and the greater campus community about the importance of blood donorship in the African American community. Only 1% of US blood donors are black, yet genetically-similar blood is needed, especially for those who receive repeated transfusions. Blood that closely matches a patients is less likely to be rejected and can mean fewer complications. About 70 percent of African Americans are types O and B, but there are more markers that make blood a match than just blood type. An example of an illness that requires repeated transfusions is sickle cell anemia, which impacts more than 70,000 people in the United States, most of them African Americans.

Did you know that as late as 1970’s there were still southern US states segregating blood?

UCF Blood Drives hosts blood drives every Wednesday at the Veteran’s Commemorative Site at Memory Mall where OneBlood gives movie tickets to donors.

There is also a solid week every month where NEW incentives will be given away, including the Just One More Tervis for blood donors, and more!

The Fall Semester full-week blood drives are

August 21 – 25

September 18-22

October 9 – 13 (with UCF Homecoming Blood Donor shirts!)

November 13-17

Blood Drive Results

Whole Blood: 21 Units

Battle of the Branches
November 8, 2017

UCF Blood Drives, in partnership with UCF Veteran’s Assistance and Resource Center (VARC) and the Student Veteran’s of America, UCF Chapter, hosted a “Battle of the Branches” in honor of Veteran’s Day.

Donors were able to vote on their favorite military branch, and here’s the tally:

4th place: Navy

3rd place: Air Force

2nd place: Marines

1st place: Army

Blood Drive Results

Whole Blood: 16 Units

Challenge Results:

15 Latino Faculty and Staff Association (WINNER!)

3 Center for Success of Women Faculty

3 Pride Faculty and Staff Association

1 Humanist and Secular Services

0 Black Faculty and Staff Association

Diversity Week Blood Drive Challenge
October 18, 2017

In the first Diversity Week Blood Drive Challenge to diverse faculty and staff support organizations we collected 16 units – impacting 48 lives! Group leaders were invited to submit a vote online and share that link with other members. Online votes counted once; blood donor votes counted three times (for the three lives saved by donating blood).

The winning organization, Latino Faculty and Staff Association, earned $250 for promotional materials. The grant was sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and supported by the UCF Print Shop.

Blood Drive Results

Whole Blood: 16 Units

Challenge Results:

15 Latino Faculty and Staff Association (WINNER!)

3 Center for Success of Women Faculty

3 Pride Faculty and Staff Association

1 Humanist and Secular Services

0 Black Faculty and Staff Association

Homecoming Week
October 9-13, 2017

The Homecoming Philanthropy Committee hosted a blood drive for Homecoming week for the second year. OneBlood sponsored custom t-shirts with the Homecoming logo as well as some UCF Blood Donor duckies.

Blood Drive Results

Challenge Winner – ARMY!

Whole Blood: 20 Units

Benefits Fair Employee Challenge
October 28, 2017

UCF Human Resources hosted the first INDOOR blood drive at ucf! OneBlood set up the donor beds outside of the Pegasus ballroom.

Blood Drive Results

Challenge Winner – ARMY!

Whole Blood: 20 Units

Battle of the Branches
November 8, 2017

UCF Blood Drives, in partnership with UCF Veteran’s Assistance and Resource Center (VARC) and the Student Veteran’s of America, UCF Chapter, hosted a “Battle of the Branches” in honor of Veteran’s Day.

Donors were able to vote on their favorite military branch, and here’s the tally:

4th place: Navy

3rd place: Air Force

2nd place: Marines

1st place: Army

Blood Drive Results

Whole Blood: 140 units

Hurricane Response Blood Drives
September 18-22

UCF Blood Drives, in partnership with OneBlood, worked to answer the call to replenish our blood supply. OneBlood’s donation infrastructure was severely disrupted by Hurricane Irma, a challenge compounded by intense need for blood supply support in our local region as well as in other areas impacted by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.

If you couldn’t attend the blood drive, please remember that this need continues not only until we recover from these tragedies but indefinitely – as we always need donors to ensure that blood supply is available should a disaster strike. Pleaseconsider joining us for an upcoming blood drive.

Blood Drive Results

Whole Blood: 185

Double Red Cells (Alyx): 22

Platelets: 10

Total procedures: 217

View our gratitude page for recognition of volunteers and the results of the university challenge!

UCF Remembers Blood Drive
June 8, 2017

UCF Blood Drives, in partnership with OneBlood, the College of Health and Public Affairs, and many other group and department supporters, hosted a 12 bus blood drive on June 3rd. At this time of remembrance, as we did after the tragedy a year ago, we wanted to empower our campus community to join together and save lives as we remember those impacted by the Pulse tragedy. Turning our sorrow into positive action, we can uplift those still grieving, provide hope, and demonstrate our commitment to our community.

Thank you to our 217 blood donors, volunteers, departments and organizations that supported the event for helping UCF save lives.

If you couldn’t attend the blood drive on June 3rd, consider joining us for an upcoming blood drive.

Diversity Week is a university tradition – a week of celebration and activities to elevate campus awareness about inclusion and explore a topics across a broad range of human identity, experience, and interaction. After the Pulse tragedy, many were unable to donate blood in support of their own identity community – an empowerment that gave comfort to others. UCF Blood Drives intentionally planned a Diversity Week event to address questions about blood donation deferrals for MSM (men who have had sex with men). Moderated by German Beard, UCF Alumnus, the panel included: Fausto Cardenas, a UCF student impacted by being unable to donate after Pulse; Dr. Nyla Dil, Assistant Professor of Immunology and Medical Microbiology at the UCF College of Medicine; Susan Forbes, Vice President for Marketing and Communications for OneBlood, Dr. German Leparc, Senior Medical Consultant for OneBlood; and Blake Lynch, UCF Alumnus and Founder and Director of Banned4Life.

We were enjoyed learning about the scientific predication for the FDA regulations as well as current research that informed the 2015 regulation changes. We heard how the deferral change from life to one year has not opened the door to gay male blood donorship, but left the event hopeful that further research might allow more donors to join in the effort to ensure adequate blood supply.

Pulse Response Blood Drives
June 13 – June 26, 2016

UCF Blood Drives, in partnership with OneBlood, hosted 10 blood drives in direct response to the Pulse tragedy, empowering our campus to support our community and collecting a total of 424 units. The June 27th drive included 13 bloodmobiles and resulted 214 units and 74 bone marrow donor registrations. The drives were supported by 55 volunteers; 12 student organizations, clubs, and teams; and 20 campus partners.